Orange color in bell peppers is known. Hernandez and Smith, 1985, J. Heredity 86:211-212, state that the color of mature fruit in bell peppers is governed by three genes y and y.sup.+, c.sub.1 and c.sub.1.sup.+, and c.sub.2 and c.sub.2.sup.+. The F2 generation of the cross (y.sup.+ c.sub.1.sup.+ c.sub.2.sup.+) (yc.sub.1 c.sub.2) yields eight phenotypes:
______________________________________ Genotype Color Munsell Color ______________________________________ y.sup.+ c.sub.1.sup.+ c.sub.2.sup.+ Red (R) 5 R 4/12 y.sup.+ c.sub.1 c.sub.2.sup.+ Light red (LR) 2.5 R 4/12 y.sup.+ c.sub.1.sup.+ c.sub.2 Orange (O) 10 R 6/12 y.sup.+ c.sub.1 c.sub.2 Pale orange (PO) 2.5 YR 7/12 y c.sub.1.sup.+ c.sub.2.sup.+ Orange-yellow (OY) 5 R 7/12 y c.sub.1.sup.+ c.sub.2 Pale orange-yellow (POY) 10 YR 8/10 y c.sub.1 c.sub.2.sup.+ Lemon yellow (LY) 5 Y 8.5/12 y c.sub.1 c.sub.2 White (W) 7.5 Y 9/4 ______________________________________
The orange-yellow of Hernandez and Smith would be popularly identified as "yellow" by the consumer. However, to avoid confusion, throughout this specification and claims, the terminology of Hernandez and Smith will be used, and thus this colored pepper will be referred to as "orange-yellow". (A photograph illustrating this color appears in FIG. 3). Thus when one crosses an orange-yellow pepper line with one of the orange colored lines, the following results are seen (colors are expressed in Hernandez and Smith terminology):
______________________________________ Parent #1 Parent #2 F1 F2 ______________________________________ Pale Orange Orange-Yellow 100% Red 27R: 9LR: 9O: 9OY: 3PO: 3POY: 3LY: 1W Orange Orange-Yellow 100% Red 9R: 3O: 3OY: 1LY Light Red Orange-Yellow 100% Red 9R: 3LR: 3OY: 1POY ______________________________________
As can be seen from the above chart, one cannot produce an orange colored hybrid simply by crossing an orange colored line with a yellow line, as the F1 progeny are all red. It would be desirable to have an orange-colored pepper line, which when crossed to a yellow-colored pepper line, would produce orange-colored F1 peppers, rather than red.